Spring awakening in the brain.

Weird things have been happening in my brain, and I realized my personal creative sparks were returning and I didn't quite recognize them any more! During the pandemic I've had to protect what goes on inside my head from becoming too overwhelming, and quite honestly my 9-to-5 has gotten pretty much all of my creative focus. And that's O.K.! It's been my lifeline over the past year and at least kept the creative juices flowing! But on my recent long walks the origins of short stories are starting to unexpectedly pop up, and music ideas, and illustrations have started building in the brain and leaking out through my hands, and (UGH!) even lines of poetry that'll probably turn into lyrics at some point are making an appearance. I've been keeping tons of notes and voice memos of disparate thoughts over the last year to keep the idea machine going, but I'm beginning to see the old doors crack open again, revealing an endless landscape of infinitely engrossing opportunities for exploration. And the connections are starting to make sense again.

So that's good.

What about the music writing, Jim? Didn't you say you'd keep that up just to keep those muscles working? And yes, it's coming. But I don't think I can quite explain how much my own relationship to music (and the arts) has changed in the last 3 years. I didn't even notice it until I had, you know, a year pause from any music writing that had any sort of actual deadline. I just lost the fire. So yes, I kept trying to turn you onto new stuff over the past year but also yeah, it'd gotten really emotionally hard. I've been doing this for over 30 years now, and most folks have problems keeping it up for 3 months, so I think I'm allowed a period of reflection, right?

So I thought of throwing in the towel. I mean, are my opinions relevant or valuable at all any longer? But that's obviously a leading question, since obviously I think they are both those things and I wouldn't be writing this otherwise.

Also.

I was thinking about the fact that my first email newsletter started 25 years ago (and introduced "Tankboy" to the world, so no, the nickname has never had any connection to Old School or drinking or any of that and if you're still confused you can read this) and then came this blog and nowadays everyone has moved to email newsletters and are moving back towards blogs, so I'm so far ahead of that game by never leaving it'd be a shame to do so now!

So, I'm not going anywhere, and there's gonna start to be a lot more to come!